Category: assessment
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Assess schools on a happiness and engagement index?
I’ve been thinking lately about the DIFFERENT educational policies we need at state and federal levels to encourage a focus on ENGAGEMENT, creativity, fun and authentic learning in schools. (Add to that list “21st century literacy/workforce skills” too.) Building on those thoughts, I posted the following as a comment on the Tech Chicks Tips post,…
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Thoughts on grades, authentic assessment, and measuring learning
The Denver NBC TV affiliate carried a story last night about Golden High School, Colorado, where someone or some group (as of yet unidentified) hacked into the school’s student information system (SIS) and changed multiple student grades. (“Students hack into school system, change grades”) According to the report, students are being asked to round up…
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NCLB has been a destructive tragedy, not an accomplishment
I take issue with Washington Post writer Amy Fagan in her article “Bush-Democrat alliance on education law feared” today: Mr. Bush is urging Congress this year to renew one of his biggest domestic accomplishments, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law of 2002, which aims to increase student achievement through more testing and by tracking…
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Web 2.0 in school reform
Well, I’m glad to read I’m in good company thinking and writing about the role of blogs and other web 2.0 technologies can and should play in school reform efforts. Martin LaMonica’s December 1st article on CNet, “Futurist: To fix education, think Web 2.0” includes the following quotation from learning, business and technology guru John…
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Apprenticeship learning and critical thinking
I think most people in the world today are asleep to the changes being wrought in the information environment, and the implications this should have for us in formal educational settings. I had a thought provoking discussion this morning with Richard Crum, who attends the Friday morning men’s group at my church and is an…
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21st Century Education reform
Kudos to the editor of Time Magazine and authors Claudia Wallis and Sonja Steptoe for their December cover story: “How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century.” (Note that you don’t have to pay to view/read the full article: If you aren’t already a Time magazine subscriber, you can opt to view a…
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Championing show and tell
Why do young children love “show and tell” so much? Why do teachers feel so pressured (at least in some contexts) to sharply limit the amount of time students spend during “show and tell” time, and eliminate “show and tell” time from the formal curriculum at some point– maybe by 2nd or 3rd grade? Part…
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Connected schools, not much blended learning
Scott McLeod shared a great post today that reveals (with text and charts too) how connected US schools are today… and begs the question in my mind, how much has changed (broadly speaking) in the ways students and teachers are learning in our 21st century schools? Sadly, Larry Cuban’s conclusions from“Oversold and Underused: Computers in…
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Beyond seat time
I’m posted some new thoughts about assessment, messy assessment, and measuring learning via “seat time” on the TechLearning blog.
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Thinking about new schools
In his article (linked on the Creativity Exchange) “Beyond Schools: A New Foundation for Education in the 21st Century” (PDF) Gary L. Thompson addresses several key questions and issues about reinventing education for our new millenium: If the World is Flat, then how do we Flatten Education? Education as [a] Pipeline Rather Than [a] Linear…